


Our Last Hope

by orphan_account



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, I loved it but I want to see where I can take this, Kinda, Stranded Together, TLJ didn't happen, not that I didn't like the movie, picks up some time after TFA
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 03:28:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13379175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Rey travels to Yavin IV to learn about the past, meanwhile Kylo Ren tracks her there, and the two begin an unexpected journey...





	Our Last Hope

**Author's Note:**

> So I haven't been writing much lately but I had this one fanfic I did, and well I don't really like it anymore so I'm doing a canon divergence story after TFA that pretty much wholly centres around Rey/Kylo sooo yah enjoy :P

 

It was not an unfamiliar happenstance to be precariously balancing in such an awkward situation for Rey. Living on Jakku, she was no stranger to dancing with certain death, a daring and artful duel of fate among the long rotted innards of star destroyers. Though, she remembered the notion being a bit more literal as she stood over the supine form of _Kylo Ren._

 

She like the maker did not play with dice, she did not believe in chance. There were reasons for things. This she believed, she had to. But what reason could there possibly be for such an unfortunate mess? They were supposed to be enemies. She had yet to truly absorb the weight of her decisions. And his, for that matter. If anyone had asked her, _' would you save Kylo Ren's life? '_ yesterday—hell, an hour ago, she would reply with an astute, _' No. '_ But here she was nonetheless.

 

 _Is this your hobby?_ Rey mused silently at the very unconscious man currently occupying her newly acquired bathing tub as she toed him with her boot—just be to safe. _Causing me grief?_

 

His only response was to groan. And he was well within his right to after the beating he had copped, though not one she could take credit for.

 

 

_"You came alone." He says through the vocoder, the jungle scape eerily quiet around them, save for distant echoes of alarm calls from native fauna._

_Her hand falls to her hip and summons her saber, but she's bated on the ignition. "I came prepared."_

_The mask tilts. "To fight?" even so distorted, he sounds disbelieving. "No. Why are you here, Rey?"_

_The sound of her name on his lips is sickeningly sweet. She sets her brow, thumbs the weapon to life._

 

 

Rey didn't know what she expected from this day. She tried to go about life flexibly, tried to move with the currents. But cleaning Kylo Ren's wounds in the main hold of the falcon was well beyond anything she could have predicted.

 

She was leaning over the cold metal edge of the tub with a razor in her grip, nervously regarding him. She'd taken his lightsaber and it joined her other on her hip. But that wasn't what made her cautious. She had no idea how to extricate him of his garb, what with most of it being excessively complicated clasps and straps that she couldn't map the function for. So the best she could do on short notice—well, what she always did. When in doubt, break it.

 

There was, however, the small issue of... indecency. Not that Rey had any qualms with the natural state of bodies, but this body? She shuddered to imagine what lay beneath the sprawling dark robes. But his wounds would fester if left unchecked, and she'd come this far, anyway. Why back out now?

 

Rey sucked in a short breath and steeled herself. She had survived worse, she supposed.

 

The tip of the scalpel pressed into the thick material at his neck and she very carefully shimmied the cut down to his navel. She dared not go any lower. Once exposed, his pale skin was clammy with sweat mingled in half-dried blood. She swallowed a gulp of spit and gently began to wipe his chest and belly clean of any crackly red patches to reveal coagulated slits where he had copped the worst strikes. Then she began the task of applying generous amounts of bacta gel to each.

 

 

_She swings her saber overhead in a wide arc that forces him backward. Space. She needs space. He likes to steal it from her, make her crave it in their battles. Rey grits her teeth and calls on old strategies as she viciously hacks at him like the object between her hands is no longer a sacred weapon to respect, but instead a tool for her success._

_He's feeling the heat, she can tell, as he bats her away and draws out of her range to assess._

_"You've been practicing." He angles his saber to point at her and there's something insanely Ben Solo about the comfortable movement. "I wonder where you have acquired such advanced technique. Certainly not from Luke."_

_Immediately her face flushes. She had not realised these were muscle memories that belonged not to her, but him. In the passions of conflict the lines separating their minds often blurred—but she usually did not tap into what was available to her._

_"My offer was never withdrawn." He continues, and there's an almost longing tincture that colours his voice. "You do need a teacher. A true teacher." She senses there is more he wants to say but she decides she doesn't want to hear it._

_"I have one." She spits back as she roars into a lunge aimed straight for him._

 

 

His helmet sat across the room, turned away from her so she didn't have to look at it. Somehow his unprotected face was worse though. Part of her still flared pridefully at the mark she had drawn down it the first time they fought, almost like a signature. Rey of Jakku had been there. She had defeated the master of the knights of Ren.

 

Slowly she frowned.

 

It didn't marr his features in the way one might expect it to. In fact, it was almost a complimentary addition, some strange point of beauty.

 

She didn't feel guilty. He deserved it, a reminder of consequence. But part of her argued, _who am I to dole justice?_

 

The musings stuttered short when the black shape below stirred. She was frozen stiff, rag in hand, and staring right into his eyes as they fluttered open and softly watched her—watching him. His lips parted, and for a heart hammering moment of innocence he looked genuinely at ease.

 

And then his jaw set, and an element changed in his gaze. A guardedness, a coldness... yet still a flicker of something more.

 

 

_Eventually they fell into impasse, their blades crossed, neither yielding but now not quite pushing hard enough to overpower the other._

_His stare is piercing. It shoots straight through the static primary light and holds her full attention, even outcompeting the noises she normally takes note of. Like crashing in the undergrowth. And furious snorting and growling._

_Suddenly her senses come to like surfacing from a dark ocean and she shoves away from him. In hindsight, it was a deadly mistake to bare her back to the dark sider. But then, Rey hadn't felt in much true danger with him, she soon realises, as her instincts now loudly blare alarms at whatever is fast approaching from the thickets. She spares Ren a single look, and she knows it's doe-eyed and childlike in terror, but there's no time to rescind it with a scowl when the tree line erupts with activity._

_The creature is large but clearly herbivorous. That's never stopped anything from being cruel or lethal in her experience, though. It has long antlers covered in felt and two blazing eyes that looked nothing short of livid. There was only seconds for her to account these traits however, for it began its charge—toward her. Too late Rey noticed the talon-esque claws attached to its front feet, which it demonstrates in ungainly lashing motions as it nears her. She should run, but the briefest of hesitations leaves her still within the firing line... until suddenly she is not. The ground shifts beneath her feet and a stunned Rey can only gawk as Ren, having just thrown her to safety, confronts the beast all by his lonesome._

 

 

It was a mess. He walked away—sorry, was dragged away—in better shape than whatever it was they had disturbed, but Rey wouldn't call anyone victorious in this situation.

 

A long pause had stretched between them and eventually Rey swallowed, resigned.

 

"I cleaned you up."

 

The ambiguous expression he had previously been maintaining turned sour as he snarked, "Do you expect me to thank you?"

 

Rey frowned. "No. But I expect you away from me sooner rather than later."

 

He looked down momentarily, his tongue swirling around the inside of his mouth in an almost mesmerising way. The thought was disconcerting. But not more so than his realisation at being moderately bare, thanks to her razor.

 

"I assume this was you and not the runyip?"

 

Rey clung to her genuine puzzlement as a guise for her embarrassment. "The what?"

 

"That creature." He explained, and as their eyes met it was now she who looked away, if only to hide the redness in her face. What was wrong with her? She was distinctly aware that he was still watching her. And as a deep hum reverberated in his chest, she decided she needed to get away from him in that instant.

 

"Don't move." Rey warned him with a pointed glare and then quickly left the hold, storming off to the cockpit to think about what her next move should be.

 

She had quite the dilemma; he was an enemy of the Resistance at least, if not herself, and was certainly guilty of many galactic-scale felonies. It would only be right to bring him back to the base. But she was torn. It felt like betrayal, in some twisted way. He _had_ saved her. The favour was reciprocated, that being their current circumstances, but perhaps it was not that which was pressing Rey.

 

Perhaps it was instead squandered opportunity.

 

If she took him back to the Resistance, she didn't trust that they wouldn't execute or incarcerate him, his mother at the helm being a moot point. There were no guarantees. Kylo Ren would die or be forever imprisoned as a martyr for the Supreme Leader's cause. If he were to be useful in bringing an end this war, he would need to turn. He would need to swear his allegiance to good as Finn and others had done before him, but as a sort of pinnacle deserter—Kylo Ren, no, Ben Solo rising from the ashes of no return to demonstrate that no one was ever truly gone. They would not defeat the tyranny of the First Order by killing them all. No, it would be by changing their hearts.

 

Rey's face hardened. She would show them the way. And she would do it with Kylo Ren's help.

 

Nodding to herself, she got up out of the pilot's seat and marched down the hallway to where she'd left him—only, the tub was empty. Her heart sank. He left, of course he did. But maybe she'd assumed too much.

 

The only warning she would receive was the soft scudding of his boots on the floor, before having a powerful arm cage around her neck and the other call the sabers off of her belt, practically disarming her. His breath raked by her ear and she felt his mouth grin against her hair. Though, Rey couldn't imagine any humour in it.

 

"Thank-you, scavenger." He growled in a voice she didn't recognise. She hated the way she shivered against the heat of him. "You've been too kind. You'll learn not to do that in time."

 

"Bastard." She couldn't help but croak, but it sounded so quiet that she doubted it held any bite to his ears. So she added, "Besides. You're one to talk."

 

He hummed and rubbed his nose into the side of her head, the sounds and sensations rippling straight through her. "I could take you to the Supreme Leader."

 

Rey's breathing shallowed as she weakly clawed at the arm around her throat. "Then why don't you?"

 

He was silent for a beat, and then all at once released her. Immediately she whirled to face him, gasping. His eyes had never looked so black as he regarded her. She thought she saw him swallow, thought she saw traces of insecurity and fear dance on his face. But then he was presenting her saber back to her with his fingers trembling on the hilt, and gaze never once breaking.

 

"I want you to join me." He proffered, and Rey's face screwed in confusion.

 

"I don't understand—"

 

"Join me." Ren reiterated and at once it made sense. Her eyes widened and lips parted. He took a step closer, and lowered the lightsaber only to reposition it so the emitter faced his own body. A small token of trust, but one she knew was very serious in his opinion.

 

She considered him, his soulful eyes that were always so confident and self-assured now so afraid. Not of her, but of her rejection. Her original plan warmed her mind. So he already had intentions to betray his master? It was enough for her to make up her mind. But perhaps before she had truly decided to go through with this secret scheme, she was gently reaching to take the saber from his hand and attaching it to her waist. He waited for her to say something, anything.

 

Rey took a deep breath and held his stare as it bore into her, and let it blow from her lips.

 

"Okay... but I have my conditions."

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it let me know by giving a kudos or comment and I'll continue ;)


End file.
